Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Results are in! I am going to RAGUSA!!!!!!! (That's in Sicily hahaha). Sorella Reber is going to be my new companion! We got to Italy at the same time so I met her at the villa and saw her around Rome a few times before she got transferred down south! Exciting!!!

Sorella McPheters is getting transferred too though!! Gah! That's called a blowout here. It's when both missionaries in a companionship get sent away and two new ones come in together, and that means we have a LOT of stuff to prepare before we leave Rome 5! Gotta clean
the apartment from top to bottom, buy stuff that's missing, leave them directions on how to manage the area... it's crazy. I accept the challenge. :D Anyway, Sorella McPheters is going to Rome 2 so she won't be too far. And then there's me, just casually going to Africa.

Hahaha I'm actually super excited! I miss Sicily and I'm already dreaming about the cannoli and granite and arancini... :D :D Also a couple families in Rome 5 have friends and relatives in Ragusa! They've already been telling me who to go visit, where to go, etc. etc. It's pretty fun. :)

I'm going to miss Rome 5 a lot though. The members have become my family away from home and I've seen our investigators change and progress and I've seen new ones come in and old ones drop us and it's just like WOW I'm actually not spending the rest of my mission here?! Haha but really though, it's been a long time and I am so ready to
go. Opportunity awaits. :)

This week was pretty hectic! We had a lot of stuff going on and
didn't get to teach as many lessons as we would have liked BUT. We got to teach Diana with Sorella Marataro for the first time! We talked to her about her baptismal invite and she said that if God wants this
baptism for her then she will accept it without question. Her main obstacle
is getting and recognizing her answer so we talked about the Spirit and the ways that we feel it. It's nothing fancy. We just bore testimony and did our best to help her out. :) We found out that she's going on vacation for all of August so the next sisters might only see her a couple times... Boo. But we're so proud of all the progress she's made! She's even started studying Jesus the Christ and she LOVES IT!!!!! We'll meet with her this week and talk about that. :)

We had a scambio with our STLs this week! It was awesome because we had NO idea what to do until the morning they were supposed to come and we were praying SO hard for the Lord to help us get appointments... Nobody was answering the phone, the people who answered weren't available... And then on the way home from our district meeting we tried again and people answered and they made appointments with us!!! It was literally a miracle. During the
scambio I taught Diana with Sorella Marataro and Sorella Cano and Sorella McPheters and Sorella Nagliati taught Sam (a new investigator) and Silvia! Sorella Cano and I also saw Marco. He's a new investigator from Albania who is really interested in the church. At first we thought he was joking but then we realized he actually wanted to know

more. He wants to come to church and he would have this past Sunday but he got called into work. :( Nevertheless he's curious and open! Sam is African and speaks French and a little bit of Italian so teaching him is hard but he's very sweet and wants to know more as well. We're hoping they'll continue to learn and grow in the gospel even though we won't be there to see it.

We had a Fourth of July party at our house on Saturday and made burgers, fries, and piggies in a blanket and ate ice cream with peaches for dessert. So yummy. We also celebrated by speaking in British accents all day long. It has actually carried over a few days and we still find ourselves doing it... Hahaha it's addicting. :)

The pictures I sent home will make up for all the things I don't have time to write about. I hope all of you back home are doing well! Imiss you all but I know I'm in the right place! Buona settimana a tutti. :) (Have a great week!)